


Snapshots: Fated Skies

by CheshireSense (cywscross)



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Age Difference, Cunnilingus, F/M, M/M, Multi, Nipple Play, Non-Linear Narrative, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-24 02:13:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14945687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cywscross/pseuds/CheshireSense
Summary: Snapshots of Tsuna, Byakuran, Yuni, and their ever after.





	1. 01 - 05

**Author's Note:**

> For Day 1 of KHR Rarepair Week 2018.
> 
> I had neither time nor motivation to write something long and with actual plot but I still wanted to contribute so I finally gave up and you get non-linear snapshots instead. Why is it not my standard fifty snapshots? Because Idk if I’ll ever actually get there. This is what happens when I play with random word generators.

 

**01\. Five**

When Yuni turns five - in this timeline, the present timeline, _their_ timeline - Aria invites the Vongola to her birthday party. She wanted the Gesso too but her mother refused and put her foot down on that one.

The day of, Yuni is down the steps as soon as Tsuna climbs out of his limo. Foregoing all sense of propriety and ignoring her mother’s shocked “Yuni?” and Gamma’s warning shout, she clumsily launches herself at Tsuna and wraps her herself around him like a koala.

She can sense that she’s surprised him, but after an initial pause and a sharp word at one of his Guardians - the Storm one, she thinks - who abruptly stops growling irritably at her, he doesn’t hesitate to hug her back, big and warm and _familiar_ even though this is technically the first time the two of them have ever met.

She demands Tsuna follow her around for the rest of the day, and he smiles and agrees and she can tell that most of her own Famiglia thinks Tsuna is just indulging her, but she can hear the way her Flames sing next to his _[mine mine mine]_ , and the way Tsuna’s Flames drape over her like an equally possessive blanket, and she can’t bear to stray from his side when she doesn’t have to.

She’s certain Tsuna feels the same way.

 

* * *

 

**02\. Lion**

When Tsuna’s inauguration gifts come in, his Guardians spend a lot of time distrustfully eyeing the one from Gesso. It stands taller than Tsuna, parked in the corner of the room and lumpily wrapped in white and lilac-patterned wrapping-paper.

“It could be a bomb!” Gokudera argues for the fifth time that hour after all the other presents - diamonds and opals, _actual gold bars_ , books and wine and weapons - have been opened.

Hibari slants an irritated look at him from where he’s absently twirling one tonfa while Ryouhei - with his ear pressed against the gift - announces, “There’s no extreme ticking! Also,” He pokes it. “It’s soft.”

Gokudera pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s never heard anything so stupid in his life. He looks like that a lot around Ryouhei. And Yamamoto for that matter. And Lambo. Tsuna considers it something of a miracle that his Storm Guardian has yet to burst a blood vessel.

“Do you have any idea how many things can be made into bombs _while disguising the fact that it’s a bomb, Turf-Top?_ Do you really have nothing but grass for brains?”

Ryouhei rounds on him, Hibari’s eyes narrow at the impending promise of a fight, and Tsuna tunes them all out as half the room devolves into chaos. They know by now that if they destroy anything, the cost of the repairs is coming out of their paychecks.

Instead, he approaches the gift, peering up at it with only mild bemusement because this is actually very like Byakuran, who has a healthy - or maybe unhealthy depending on who you ask - interest in pranks. But they’re not usually harmful ones these days.

Besides, his Hyper Intuition isn’t ringing any bells.

The tearing of paper catches everyone’s attention, and before anyone can say anything, Tsuna finds himself automatically catching the human-sized object that topples out. He blinks at it. Glassy amber eyes stare back. It’s-

-a lion. It’s a stuffed lion toy, complete with silky mane and light brown fur and a tufted tail, one of those you might find at a carnival or fair. It actually looks a lot like Natsu, just ten times his size with a floppy white bow wrapped around its neck and a bag of marshmallows hooked on one of the plastic fangs in its toothy grin.

“A stuffed toy?” Gokudera splutters, finally finding his voice. “That marshmallow bastard has the gall to send a _stuffed toy_ as a gift to Vongola Decimo’s-”

He shuts up, mostly because Tsuna interrupts him with a huff of laughter, quiet and short-lived but genuine.

It’s the first time he’s laughed since coming to Italy. Nobody says anything about the toy after that.

 

* * *

 

**03\. Midnight**

Tsuna carefully eases open his balcony doors, making sure not to make even the smallest of sounds as he slips outside and shuts them behind him again. With Reborn asleep in the next room, Tsuna wouldn’t put it past his former tutor to come in guns blazing if he realizes Tsuna happens to be sneaking out when he should be sleeping too.

 _“A mafia boss doesn’t act like a teenager sneaking off for a midnight rendezvous!”_ Tsuna can already hear. And he’s no teenager but-

He hears the near-silent flap of wings, easily mistaken for an owl or a nightjar, but Tsuna also sees a flicker of white in his peripheral vision, right before arms catch him from behind, one around his waist and the other around his chest before they both lift off into the air, gliding up and over the trees, out of the Vongola estate and through the night skies of Italy.

Tsuna relaxes into the arms holding him, and a smugly pleased sound hums low in his ear as white hair tickles his cheek. They don’t fly for much longer once they reach the nearby town, passing over only a few dozen rooftops before they touch down in the shadows of a building next to the boardwalk.

Tsuna turns as soon as he’s back on flat ground, meeting Byakuran’s smirk with a smile of his own.

“Breaking and entering is usually frowned upon,” Tsuna remarks even as his hand swings out to tangle with Byakuran’s.

“Good thing I was invited then,” Byakuran retorts cheerfully, pulling Tsuna close as they both step out onto the boardwalk.

They’re accosted a split second later by Yuni, a white dragon draped delicately over her shoulders.

“Tsuna! Bya!” She greets, beaming up at them both. “Finally! It’s been so long since we’ve all been together!”

“So very long!” Byakuran immediately agrees even as he waves a distracted hand through the air and the dragon disperses in a gentle rain of Sky Flames. “It’s been weeks! I’ve been going into withdrawal, and Kikyo refuses to let me have more marshmallows to console my broken heart!”

Yuni giggles at his dramatics while Tsuna rolls his eyes.

“Kikyo refuses to let you have more marshmallows because he knows it’s the only way he can force you to do your paperwork,” He points dryly, utterly immune to the wounded look Byakuran tosses at him. Still, he sighs fondly before relenting and leaning up to press a brief kiss to the corner of Byakuran’s mouth. Something flickers in the man’s eyes, there and gone in a heartbeat, but Tsuna knows him well enough by now, and it makes something in him ache that even after all this time, simple gestures of affection can still surprise Byakuran.

Not to be outdone, Yuni goes up on her toes and presses a kiss to Byakuran’s cheek as well, an impish smile on her face when she draws back, one that doesn’t match the soft look in her eyes, equal parts fierce and warm as she crowds into both of them. Tsuna and Byakuran part simultaneously, and Yuni slides seamlessly into place between them, twining their hands together like they’ve done a million times before.

Out loud, Tsuna only says, “Come on, don’t pout, Byakuran. We only have a few hours together, and unlike _somebody_ , _my_ babysitter will actually shoot me if I don’t finish my paperwork on time.”

This time, it’s Byakuran’s turn to roll his eyes. “You give your hitman too many liberties.”

Tsuna shrugs and doesn’t bother replying, even when Yuni says nothing but frowns a little in a way that says she agrees with Byakuran despite Reborn being her godfather. It’s an old argument, and he’d like to see either of them restrain the strongest hitman in the world.

Reborn is Reborn, and their relationship has always been a strange one.

“We are the cornerstones of the world,” Yuni murmurs, something _Other_ in her voice.

“And even the infamous Reborn should have a care in how he treats us,” Byakuran finishes in the same echoing tone, with just the faintest hint of that wild ancient madness he’s always been so susceptible to lurking underneath.

Tsuna side-eyes them both before heaving a sigh, and then - without warning - he scoops Yuni up into a bridal-carry, startling a squeak out of her even as he takes three runnings steps forward and dives over the railing of the boardwalk. They plummet towards the beach below, only for the soft orange wings he summons from his back to catch them before they hit, buffeting the sand as he pulls parallel to the ground and soars out over the deceptively calm waters.

Byakuran catches up in another second, and Yuni half-shrieks, half-laughs when Tsuna shares a grin with the older Don before angling himself up and over Byakuran, only to drop Yuni into his arms. Byakuran catches her easily before banking low and letting her sandaled feet skim the sea for a moment before rising into the air again and tumbling her into Tsuna’s arms once more.

“If you drop me into the water, I will shave you both bald!” Yuni promises, but she’s grinning from ear to ear too, cheeks flushed red and blue eyes sparkling, and she knows they’d never drop her.

They swoop around for another half hour, sticking to the places where lamplights won’t reach, and keeping up a steady wave of Flames to knock out any cameras that might be aimed at them. Tsuna tires first of course. Byakuran may have coached him through summoning wings made of Flame but he’ll probably never be as good at it as Byakuran himself, whose wings might as well be a tertiary pair of natural-born appendages, and Yuni is still working on manifesting hers.

They end up sprawled on the beach, sipping hot too-sweet drinks from a coffee shop open late down the street. They all have sand in their shoes and hopeless wrinkles in their clothes but Yuni sits with her head on Byakuran’s shoulder and one arm wound around Tsuna’s, and all three of them are perfectly content to spend the rest of the night listening to the rhythmic lap of water creeping up the shore while the moon hangs high and large up above. A chilly gust of wind sweeps by but they don’t even feel it, not with the way their respective Flames weave together like a single all-encompassing entity, burning strong and steady and safe.

These are the times they are all happiest.

 

* * *

 

**04\. Sleep**

Byakuran isn’t surprised when Yuni finds him clutching an opened bottle of Chianti on his balcony in the middle of the night, bloodshot eyes and shaky hands and all. He doesn’t know how she got here, let alone breached the Gesso’s defenses without anyone the wiser, but he’s learned not to question Yuni’s mysterious ways. His youngest lover has a sweet face and - most days - an even sweeter temperament but only fools would underestimate her.

He gives it another hour, maybe two if he’s lucky, before Tsuna appears too. Vongola territory is farther away, not to mention - between the three of them - possibilities and predictions have always been more his and Yuni’s domain than Tsuna’s. Tsuna has no doubt sensed the disturbance too but it won’t be as immediate for him.

Byakuran would be perfectly happy if Tsuna didn’t come at all ( _he has always been a magnificent liar_ ). Yuni too for that matter. But Yuni is already here, and Tsuna won’t be far behind, which means Byakuran really needs to get his shit together soon.

Yuni takes a seat on the railing beside him, legs swinging, and normally, Byakuran would clasp a hand around her hip or wrist to make sure she doesn’t fall, even though he knows full well Yuni has excellent balance and reflexes. Tonight, he just takes another swig of alcohol and finds it in himself to be vaguely grateful that Yuni doesn’t try to take it away from him.

Instead, she simply waits him out, and it doesn’t take long at all for Byakuran to crack.

“One sent Tsuna’s body back to the Vongola in pieces,” He finally croaks out. “Another buried him alive. And the third drugged him like most of the others did Yuni but he overcame it just long enough to put a bullet in his own brain so Vongola would split from Millefiore. And it felt- I felt it every-”

He breaks off and finishes the rest of the bottle in three gulps before fumbling for another. Why do they make these so small anyway?

Yuni still isn’t saying anything. She knows as well as he does that nothing actually makes this _better_. His only consolation is that he has Yuni and Tsuna beside him in this world. He’s not insane, mostly, although if anything can drive him to that point, it would probably be all these other versions of him who basically lost the plot the moment the Cervello cornered him with the Mare rings and never met Tsuna or Yuni until it was far too late.

He reaches for his… fifth? Sixth? He can’t even really taste it anymore, and that’s when Yuni finally cuts in, gently but firmly taking the bottle away from him before hauling him to his feet and back inside. She guides him past the rumpled bed where he jolted awake from earlier and almost didn’t make it to the bathroom in time before he threw up.

Instead, she bundles him into his favourite giant squishy sofa in his private sitting room and drapes three blankets around him. Then she disappears into the kitchenette for a moment before coming back out with a glass and a pitcher of water. Byakuran tries pouting but his face doesn’t seem to want to cooperate, and Yuni ignores him anyway as she forces the full glass into his hands and stares at him until he drinks it.

“Y’know my Flames can flush out the alcohol,” Byakuran mumbles sullenly.

Yuni doesn’t look impressed. “If you can do that without taking out half your organs and the entire east wing in your state, I’ll fund you a year’s worth of marshmallows.”

Tempting. But unfortunately, she’s also right about his control. She usually is, about almost everything. It’s terrible.

He drinks a second glass of water after she refills it, and under Yuni’s watchful gaze, he already feels a little less shaky, even more so when Yuni finally relents and sets aside the glass for him before wriggling her way into his lap under all the blankets.

Byakuran immediately wraps his arms around her and buries his face in her neck, concentrating on the faint but steady pulse he feels fluttering against his cheek. He’s probably holding her too tightly but she doesn’t complain, and she hugs him back with equal ferocity.

They stay like that for a while, until Byakuran feels less like all those futures stuck in his head might swallow him whole and leave him with nothing, nothing but blood and bodies and ashes, rot in his veins and a madness too deep to come back from.

He doesn’t need Yuni to tell him when Tsuna arrives. They’re both a constant presence in his mind, no matter how far away, but this close, his Flame bond with Yuni is a merrily crackling campfire and the one with Tsuna is a steady forge-flame. So he doesn’t hear Tsuna step into the room so much as he senses it, and moments later, there’s a familiar hand carding through his hair before curling around the back of his neck.

They have no need for words. Tsuna doesn’t crawl into the bundle of blankets like Yuni because nights like these, Byakuran can’t stand close contact with him, some irrational part of him that he’ll never admit to too terrified that he’ll blink and find Tsuna dead and broken at his feet and his hands drenched in his lover’s blood.

So Tsuna stands behind the sofa, guarding his back and grounding him to reality with only the lightest of touches, while Yuni lets him cling to her for much the same reason.

He dozes off like that, surrounded by the only two people he’ll ever truly need, and when he wakes to weak sunlight creeping in through the satin curtains, he’s not surprised to find them all crammed together on the sofa, Yuni sprawled on his chest while Tsuna sits slumped on one end, Byakuran’s head in his lap.

It’s very early. There’s a breeze, probably from the open balcony doors, and it blows past with that crisp chilly quality of early mornings.

Byakuran worms an arm out to tug the blanket Tsuna’s using back up over his shoulders before pulling his own blankets up properly to better cover Yuni.

Then he shuts his eyes and lets himself drift off again. It’s easy to sleep when he knows - here and now - that there’s nothing to be afraid of.

 

* * *

 

**05\. Body (Disposal)**

Genkishi dies on a Saturday. Byakuran would’ve done it gladly. He has no attachment to Genkishi despite having saved his life a mere month prior to the whole Representative Battles nonsense, especially when he ends up joining the Giglio Nero Famiglia under Aria yet again but looks at Byakuran - when he visits - with the kind of worship that his alternate future selves might appreciate but he only finds annoyingly distasteful, especially since Kikyo dropped a word to him that they’ve recently started receiving encrypted information about Giglio Nero’s security details and bank accounts via an email that the Cloud Guardian managed to trace back to Genkishi.

Tsuna would’ve done it too, just as he would have in another future if Genkishi didn’t slip away at the last minute. A man capable of swearing fealty to one person all while planning to betray them is not a man worthy of serving a Sky. He’ll never be as cavalier with death and murder as Byakuran but he has no qualms getting his hands dirty when it’s necessary.

(Besides, his first kill was Byakuran, and no murder will ever be as hard as that one was, even though he couldn’t understand why for the longest time.)

But it’s Yuni who does it, who studies Genkishi for years with knowing eyes and treats him politely but never tolerates remaining in the same room as him for more than a few minutes when she can help it, who lures him out into the woods one day and slips a delicate blade of silver between his ribs and meets his desperate wide-eyed gaze with a steady one of her own as she watches him breathe his last.

She never tells them what she saw when she looked at him, and they don’t ask as Tsuna digs the hole and Byakuran dumps the body inside and Yuni folds her hands in a quick prayer but also leaves the grave unmarked.

She does say, later, to Byakuran, “He could’ve been loyal to you.”

Byakuran shrugs lazily, more occupied with glaring at a splatter of mud on his pristine white boots as they trek back through the forest towards civilization. “Betraying you is betraying me, so no, _cara_ , he couldn’t have.”

She huffs and turns to Tsuna who has the shovel balanced over one shoulder and looks about ten times more relaxed in a mismatched sweater and jogging pants than in a suit despite the fact that they’ve just finished burying a body. “Aren’t you all about second chances, Tsuna?”

Tsuna glances at her, so much calmer these days, and comfortable in his own skin in a way that the seal made impossible when he was younger. “Sometimes. And you did that, didn’t you? You’ve given him over a decade to prove his loyalty to Giglio Nero or at least have the courage to leave. He’s the one who threw that chance away.” He stares at her for a moment longer before gently knocking his shoulder against hers. “If you’re looking for condemnation, you’re asking the wrong two people to give it to you.”

Byakuran chortles his agreement and gets an elbow to the side for his efforts. Yuni’s cheeks puff out before she deflates again with a sigh. She snags Tsuna’s free arm and pointedly ignores Byakuran, who rolls his eyes and goes back to glowering at his boots.

“Mom will be upset,” Yuni mumbles.

“She’ll get over it,” Tsuna assures. “Especially after Byakuran gives her the evidence of what he’s been doing. They’ll think he caught wind of it and ran.”

Yuni sighs again and finally turns back to Byakuran. “It’ll be troublesome for you.”

“Please, infant,” He simultaneously waves a dismissive hand and dances out of the way of the kick Yuni aims at his shin. “I’ve dealt with far more troublesome things than your mother and her yapping dog.”

Yuni groans and thumps her forehead against Tsuna’s shoulder. “I _told_ you not to call Gamma that! Especially to his face!”

“I don’t call him that to his face.”

“You did it at the gala just two months ago!”

“I did not. I called him a dog in heat, with the way he was constantly panting after-”

“ _Byakuran!_ ”

Tsuna snorts, a twitch of a smile flitting at the corners of his mouth, but he also pats Yuni’s shoulder and quells Byakuran with a look. Byakuran raises his hands, doing a terrible job of looking contrite, but he drops the line of conversation anyway.

Yuni grumbles under her breath and turns to face forward again, picking her way over a few tree roots, so she doesn’t see the razor-sharpness that enters Byakuran’s smirk. He exchanges a loaded glance with Tsuna, and his lips thin even further but neither of them says anything.

Gamma is about as loyal to Aria and Yuni as Genkishi was/is/will be to Byakuran in a thousand timelines. Most days, there’s something almost fatherly in the way he indulges Yuni’s every whim and glares at Tsuna and Byakuran (mostly Byakuran, occasionally Tsuna) when they’re around her, but other days, he looks at Yuni the way he looks at Aria, and the only reason Byakuran hasn’t laced his coffee with poison or Tsuna has yet to turn the passive Flames in his lungs to ice is because they know Gamma will always treat both mother and daughter like they belong on a pedestal, and unless one of them makes a move, he’ll never act on his feelings.

“Let’s stop for tiramisu on the way back,” Tsuna says abruptly. “I’m hungry, Byakuran wants something sweet, and you deserve the rest of the day off, Yuni.”

Yuni makes a face. “I killed a member of my Famiglia.”

“You killed a traitor,” Byakuran corrects her. “A day off is the least you deserve.”

Yuni doesn’t look like she agrees but she also doesn’t protest as they reach the nondescript car waiting for them on the side of the road.

By sunset, they’re sitting around a table laden down with desserts and pastries and doing their utmost to give themselves cavities while they wait for the assorted bodyguards and Guardians that they shook off early this morning to catch up with them. Actually, there’s a pretty brunette in the far corner of the shop that Tsuna is 99.9% sure is at least one - possibly both - of his Mist Guardians in disguise but they’re too far away to eavesdrop and seems content to wait for Tsuna to finish so Tsuna doesn’t bother drawing attention to them.

“It’s not that I feel guilty,” Yuni says at last after she downs a slice of tiramisu cake, five cannoli, and a plate of panna cotta (Tsuna winces a little just watching her but Byakuran doesn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary). “It’s just that… there _are_ worlds where he’s… better. Faithful. And I feel like I might have cut that potential short.”

Byakuran hums, eyes going distant for a moment before blinking back into the present. “You didn’t. I would’ve told you.”

Yuni smiles a bit at her empty dessert plate, slightly rueful, mostly wry. “Would you have really?”

Byakuran pauses between mouthfuls of his budino before reaching over to catch her chin and lift her gaze to his. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Yuni.”

Yuni immediately grimaces apologetically. “I know. Sorry, Bya.”

Byakuran lets her go, ruffling her hair before returning to his dessert. Tsuna glances between them before offering Yuni another slice of tiramisu.

“It is what it is,” Tsuna says quietly as he sits back in his chair with his cup of tea. “Genkishi was who he was in this world. We dealt with it the way we did, and that’s our choice and our responsibility to bear. But the decision to betray your Famiglia was his, and that’s _his_ responsibility, not yours. He isn’t absolved of that just because he could’ve been someone better somewhen and somewhere else.”

Yuni doesn’t reply, but when they finally get up to pay and leave, if only so the Flame signatures finally bearing down on their location won’t disrupt the other customers, the line of her shoulders is looser than when they entered, and - later - when Byakuran hands over the evidence to Aria with mockery at his lips and scorn in his eyes, there is only firm resolve in the way Yuni carries herself as she helps her mother follow through on the destruction of Genkishi’s reputation throughout the mafia world.

 


	2. 06 - 10

 

**06\. Legend**

Tsuna rules the present - _what will be, will be, for the Emperor demands and so the universe obeys_.

Yuni preserves the past - _what has been, carved in stone or sanded out of the annals of time, dependent upon the whims of the Priestess_.

And Byakuran holds the future - _what can be, an eternity’s worth of choices all laid out at the Magician’s fingertips, awaiting his Sword of Damocles_.

People don’t believe in the legends anymore, if they’ve even heard about them in the first place. And there hasn’t been a triad of Tri-ni-set Skies as powerful and in tune with each other as the three of them since Giotto’s time, ten generations ago.

 _Fairy tales_ , Ricardo scoffed, even as Sepira separated the Giglio Nero from the Vongola’s bloodlust and greed, while the keeper of the Mare rings disappeared, and by the time the third generation came around, the stories were almost entirely lost or dismissed, and the Chosen ring-bearers themselves never wielded even a fraction of the power that resides in the Tri-ni-set.

Their souls just weren’t right for it, Byakuran theorizes. Good enough to protect the rings and keep the world turning, but unsuitable in everything else.

Until now.

Byakuran carries the Mare Sky, and there’s no denying the power that resonates with every beat of his heart. Yuni feels it as well, even without the actual Pacifier, and Tsuna - scarred from his sealing but finally, fully freed after the Vongola rings were likewise unsealed in that other future, shattering the last of their King’s own chains - burns so brightly these days that Byakuran frankly finds it _insulting_ that most of Vongola still don’t seem to understand that the boss they like running roughshod over could kill them all with a _thought_.

Tsuna indulges them, is the thing, but more than that, he spent so much of his childhood drowning under the horrendous influence of Nono’s damned seal that it simply took him too long to claw his way out of that mire and find the Will to assert his rightful authority over his people. He does better now, commands respect, as is his due, but more often than Byakuran and even _Yuni_ approves of, the man’s own Guardians regress and forget who it is they’ve pledged their lives and loyalty to. Somedays, Byakuran’s fairly certain they don’t even _know_ , not really.

( _Friend, perhaps, but there’s a reason - in a million and billion other timelines - those Byakurans all fancied themselves a god, and it was never just because of the delusions brought on by an imbalanced and degraded Tri-ni-set._ )

The Tri-ni-set Skies are different. The other elements once served as anchor points for their respective Skies, especially the Arcobaleno, in the form of the Curse, helping them ensure that the energies running through the world won’t collapse. But with Talbot’s invention, those elements’ rings are mostly just trinkets now-- powerful ones, with the ability to ignite and conduct Flames better than any set in the world, but still part of the Tri-ni-set only in name.

The Skies though, Byakuran and Tsuna and Yuni, they remain the universe’s pillars, the ones who possess the Tri-ni-set’s power and knowledge, the ones who carry the weight of all of time and space, and that doesn’t go away because a fancy jar full of Flames managed to take over the maintenance of the world’s energies.

Nobody but them seems to realize, not Reborn, not even Aria, arguably the most perceptive and - in Aria’s case - with an Earthling’s blood, however diluted and weak. Part of that, Byakuran suspects, is because they all just want to put it behind them. They’re finally freed of the Curse and Checkerface and a timeless existence with only death at its end. They want to get on with their lives, and the last thing that would help is to linger on old wounds and bad memories.

Byakuran supposes that’s another reason Tsuna gives Reborn so much leeway, and - despite disapproving - Yuni herself says nothing to reprimand them even though they are technically hers to command, broken Curse or no.

But one day… one day they’ll go too far, Reborn or Vongola’s Guardians or someone else entirely, and Byakuran’s only wish is to be there to witness the fallout.

 

* * *

 

**07\. List (NSFW)**

“Relax, _cara_ ,” Byakuran purrs in her ear from where he’s spooning her from behind, but Yuni would like to see _him_ relax if Tsuna’s face was buried between _his_ legs.

A chuckle vibrates against her, and she nearly shrieks at the sensation but manages to strangle it down to a helplessly garbled cry at the last second, something made especially difficult when Tsuna seals his lips around her clit and _sucks_.

Her hips buck off the bed, or at least try to. Tsuna’s hands hold her in place, and something in her thrills at how effortlessly he can pin her down and make her take it when he’s normally so gentle with her.

He thrusts his tongue inside her again, working it in and out between long licks and teasing nibbles to her folds, and Yuni can only whimper, fingers grasping at the bedsheets as she feels herself getting wetter, dripping with both her first orgasm earlier and the stimulation now. As if reading her mind, Tsuna pulls back a little, humming against her mound before murmuring, “You’re soaked, sweetheart.”

She’d be embarrassed if Tsuna didn’t sound so pleased. As it is, she simply spreads her legs a little wider and rocks her hips against his mouth as he continues eating her out with a thorough sort of enthusiasm that only stokes her pleasure higher and drives her ever closer to yet another orgasm.

She barely notices the large hands that slide up her ribcage to cup the underside of her breasts until fingers catch on her pebbled nipples and she finds herself gasping at the sensation. “Oh! Do that-”

She catches the edge of Byakuran’s delighted smirk in her peripheral before a moan spills out of her, back arching as clever fingers flick over her nipples.

“She likes that,” Byakuran says from somewhere over her head, suddenly twisting her nipples lightly and sending shocks of pleasure through her body, dragging another stuttering cry from her. The stray thought of what tongue and teeth might feel like on them enters her mind, and she shudders at the images her brain helpfully conjures for her.

Tsuna makes a sound of agreement against her clit before he’s suckling on it again, and then a finger is sliding into her, almost immediately rubbing against that spot inside her that whites out her vision and sends pleasure crashing through her system as she gushes out her second orgasm of the night. It wrenches a scream from her as her cunt spasms, spilling her release over Tsuna’s hand and face as he eases her through it, soaking the sheets underneath as she trembles from the force of it.

Her body feels like it’s shaken itself into boneless pieces as she slowly comes down from the high. She slumps further against Byakuran as she catches her breath, and she’s both grateful and vaguely disappointed that Tsuna’s pulled back entirely. On one hand, she’s pretty sure she’s too sensitive to try for a third orgasm, but on the other, she can now say for certain that cunnilingus has just become one of her favourite activities in bed.

“That was great,” She mumbles without opening her eyes, and she hears Tsuna huff out a breath of laughter from her left. “A+, would do ’gain.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Tsuna tells her in fond tones. The bed shifts as he gets up and heads for the bathroom. Yuni takes a moment to appreciate the view. “And we can check that off on your to-do list, I suppose.”

Yuni blinks after him. Oh, they haven’t even- They were supposed to have sex - actual penetrative sex - today, it’s on the list she wrote up in anticipation of her sixteenth birthday, one that made Byakuran grin wickedly and Tsuna sigh out of sheer exasperation but also made his eyes darken with something hungry. She got too distracted with just a couple things on that list though. They didn’t even make it halfway through. And-

She squirms a bit, and yeah, Byakuran is still hard against the small of her back, and she’s fairly certain it’s bad etiquette to leave your partner - or partners in this case - unsatisfied.

But, “Later, Yuni,” Tsuna murmurs as he appears again, a wet cloth in hand. “There’s no rush.”

“But I want to!” She protests, and she does, she’s been looking forward to sex for _months_. Just… maybe not now. Her eyelids are heavy, her body feels too relaxed to move on command, and she thinks she could drift right off if she lets herself.

“Later,” Byakuran echoes, and then she’s being coaxed over onto clean sheets, and Tsuna is nudging her thighs apart to clean her up. Another hand smooths back her hair before tucking a blanket around her. “Get some sleep, Yuni. We have all the time in the world to play when you wake up.”

Yuni grumbles a bit but it’s hard to put up more of a fight when she feels as good as she does, if tired. So she sighs and snuggles deeper under the blanket and lets the hand in her hair pet her into slumber.

The last thing she hears is her lovers’ heated voices, pitched low but with unmistakable intent. It’s a pity she’s too sleepy to even watch. She’ll just have to add that onto the list too. Later.

 

* * *

 

**08\. Mother**

“Okaa-san, I’m home!” Tsuna calls out as he drags his luggage inside.

Nana appears at the top of the stairs, already smiling, and she even laughs a little as Tsuna bounds up the steps to give her a hug.

“Welcome home, Tsu-kun!” She greets as they pull away. “Did you have a safe flight?”

“Yeah Kaa-san,” Tsuna assures. “Nothing happened. It was pretty boring actually. I slept through most of it.”

“Good,” Nana pats his cheek. “Maybe the jetlag won’t be as bad then.” She glances behind him as voices approach from outside. “Did you bring your friends?”

She still refers to his Guardians as “friends” these days, but on occasion, there’s a lilt to her tone that seems to suggest everything from “employees” to “subordinates” to just about anything _but_ “friends”. Only Lambo is exempt, and at least she still lets them into the house.

(Reborn is no longer welcome. Neither is Iemitsu, and if Nono ever showed his face here again, Nana might actually poison her own food. Tsuna wouldn’t put it past her.)

“It’s just Yuni and Bya,” Tsuna tells her. “They needed a break from work too so I thought I’d drag them home with me.”

Nana immediately brightens at this, just as Yuni and Byakuran enter the house. “That’s wonderful! Yuni-chan, Bya-kun, it’s good to see you again!”

Yuni bounces up the stairs and gives her a hug as well while Byakuran waves from where he’s shutting the door. “Ciao, Mamma. Sorry we didn’t call ahead. It was a last-minute sort of thing.”

Nana waves a hand and ushers them all inside. “It’s fine, you know you’re always welcome here.”

She leaves them to get themselves sorted, reminding them to dump their dirty clothes in the washer before heading back downstairs to prepare extra portions of lunch for the two extra guests.

No food in the world compares to Nana’s home-cooking, and judging by how fast Byakuran and Yuni are eating, they agree. Nana simply watches them all with an indulgent eye. She doesn’t have a whole lot of people to cook for ever since Tsuna moved to Italy, at least not like this, at home and with family.

“How is the restaurant doing, Okaa-san?” Tsuna asks. “Have you found someone better for the pastry chef position?”

Nana looks as surprised as she does pleased that Tsuna’s asked at all. Not for the first time, Tsuna curses Iemitsu to a special place in Hell.

“I have!” Nana whips out a menu, tablet-sized with a cute design on the cover. “She’s a recent hire, just out of school from France before she moved here, but her cakes are delicious, and she’s even added a few things to the menu. I asked her to include something with marshmallows, Bya-kun,” Nana adds, and Byakuran immediately perks up. “It’s her own invention but a few people have ordered it in the past week, and we’ve had glowing reviews.”

“I’ll have to try it then,” Byakuran agrees as he peruses the menu, and Tsuna suspects he’s gearing up to try and convince Nana again to open an Italian branch.

“I want to try one of the bento boxes,” Yuni declares, leaning over to peer at the menu as well. “I want to try _all_ the bento boxes.”

Nana laughs at that. “I can just make you one from home, Yuni-chan.”

“That’s not the same!” Yuni insists. “And we’ll be here for two weeks, so of course we have to go to your restaurant.”

They chatter on about it, about Nana’s handpicked staff and how popular the place is with everyone from students to adults, about some new yakuza punks a few days ago who made the mistake of barging in and demanding free food only to find themselves on the receiving end of a Disciplinary Committee member’s ire, even about how a few people have suggested an expansion but that Nana prefers keeping the restaurant relatively small and cozy. There tends to be a line outside, snaking around the block during dinner rush, but the food is good enough to keep people coming back despite the wait.

Tsuna’s content to contribute only now and then, happier to just sit back and watch the easy way they interact, especially coming from his mom. Nana’s so much more animated these days, and it isn’t as if she wasn’t the perfectly welcoming, perfectly cheerful caretaker before, but it’s _genuine_ these days in a way she could never be when she was under the Sky Haze influence of Iemitsu’s Flames. She has her own interests and her own ambitions beyond waiting around at home for a husband who only gives her more work to do on the few occasions he actually visits, and the dreamy, oblivious quality that always hung around her like a smothering shroud is gone, replaced by a sharp awareness that Tsuna never even realized she was capable of until that fateful day he sat her down to explain the mafia to her and almost had a heart-attack when she subsequently collapsed and was rushed to the hospital.

 _Flame Haze_ , Shamal told him later with a grimness Tsuna wasn’t used to seeing from him. _Sky-based. It suppresses all the areas of the brain that might make her curious or suspicious about anything and encourages attachment to the one holding her leash. Layman’s terms, it keeps the victim compliant to the Sky’s desires. It doesn’t take away personality or anything like that but it… dulls it, depending on what the Sky wants. In your mother’s case, from I’ve seen, it kept her from asking questions, made her content to stay in the metaphorical box she was put in, and forced her to remain ignorant of certain subjects - probably anything mafia-related - even if it happens right in front of her. Worst-case scenario, it would’ve killed her if her mind was finally unable to continue conjuring imaginary scenarios to explain the things she wasn’t allowed to know. You got her to me just in time. It’s curable, but it’ll take a stronger Sky than the one who did this to her to fix her, and her Flames probably won’t ever be the same again. Oh, didn’t I mention? She’s a Sky, and a powerful one too back in the day, even if her Flames were dormant. Lucky for her. Any other element wouldn’t have been able to protect her sanity as long as it has, except maybe Mist. The invasive Sky Flames would’ve destroyed her mind years ago. You can call Iemitsu a lot of things but he isn’t exactly known for his fine control and delicacy._

Needless to say, the first thing Tsuna did after his mother was finally on the mend was… _purge_ the CEDEF.

It took years for Nana to really start healing. But she’s better now, more a _person_ than she ever was when Tsuna was growing up no matter how much he loved her, and she’s both divorced from Iemitsu and has a lovely restraining order against him.

(Not that that alone would’ve stopped him, but it wasn’t as if Tsuna was ever going to let Iemitsu off the hook with a mere _restraining order_.)

She accepts what Tsuna is and what he does with the understanding of a classic Sky, but she also insists on at least weekly phone calls and being informed of his life in general, if not the details of his job, and holidays must be for family - she’ll go to him or he’ll come to her.

Nana isn’t so wildly different from before to be unrecognizable, but for Tsuna, at the beginning, it was still a little like getting to know his mom all over again, and from time to time, he still marvels over the change. But it’s a good change, and he’s glad for it.

That she also took to Yuni and Byakuran with only some initial wariness before they won her over, treating them like another son and daughter and never even batting an eye when she first caught her son kissing both of them at one point or another just makes him love her more.

 

* * *

 

**09\. Change**

Aria looks at the three of them sometimes, the way they orbit each other, returning to their respective Famiglia but always coming together again, and she wonders about the future of the Giglio Nero, about Vongola and even Gesso too. She wonders about heirs and bloodlines and what will become of them all in the end.

She can admit she has no idea how they make it work, how Yuni or even Tsunayoshi can stand to be in the same room as Byakuran when they have memories, hundreds of timelines, of this man drugging or killing them. But Yuni’s never shown any misgivings, even during their first meeting, and one of Vongola’s first new alliances after Tsunayoshi took over was with Gesso, before even the Simon Famiglia.

She knows Yuni will do the same the moment Giglio Nero’s mantle is placed on her shoulders.

She’s heard - from rumours and Tsunayoshi’s own lips when he was still a teenager with his head barely above water as he somehow floundered his way through every obstacle the underworld threw at him - that Vongola would no longer remain a mafia organization if and once he took over. She dismissed the claims at the time, amused by the naive idealism but also sympathetic because the realization that such a task - especially for a Famiglia as blood-drenched and mired in crime as Vongola - is nigh impossible would hit Tsunayoshi hard. Not even the Giglio Nero could keep their hands clean, and they lasted longest from Sepira’s time before they too succumbed to the inevitable.

And yet…

The first thing Tsunayoshi does is clean house. It starts quietly, slowly, but it _starts_. The Cervello is disbanded almost overnight, all their assets and resources seized and most of them dismissed with severance packages and an Oath on their tongues to ensure no secrets would spill. Other members are suddenly arrested, and still others disappear seemingly into thin air. News circulate about a fight - another one - between Vongola Decimo and Xanxus, one that wipes out half the estate. Nobody knows what they argued about, but in the aftermath, Xanxus limps back to the Varia mansion, cracks down viciously on his own men, and almost a third of the Varia is brutally culled by the end of the month. CEDEF is outright eradicated. From its ashes rises the _Foundation_ , apparently a taskforce or agency of some kind in charge of intelligence-gathering and forging liaisons, a new branch of Vongola created by its Decimo before the man promptly handed the reins over to his infamous Cloud Guardian. What liaisons those would be remained a mystery until reports of Vongola members meeting with law enforcement and government officials started coming in.

Then invitations are sent out, gathering every last one of Vongola’s allies to a summit, from the most insignificant couriers to the largest Famiglia, including the Gesso and the Giglio Nero.

Aria listens, stunned speechless, as Tsuna basically announces that Vongola would be returning to its vigilante roots, that their goals would include only taking care of threats of the supernatural Flame variety that regular law enforcement can’t handle, and that eventually their days of traipsing all over the world, doing as they pleased and letting their battles - big and small - leak over into civilian areas before leaving again without any explanation would probably soon be over. Aria doesn’t get it until later, when the knowledge of _Flames_ begin cropping up on the internet, in newspapers, on news channels, all over the world.

Xanxus looks utterly derisive, but he also stands on Tsuna’s left and a foot behind, and he glares the explosion of shouts and accusations down to an agitated sort of silence while their respective Guardians occupy the space behind them, bristling with weapons, poised to move at a moment’s notice. Reborn leans beside the only exit, his gun held casually in one hand.

( _In times of strife_ , a ghost of a voice echoes in Aria’s mind, _the Vongola always stand as one._ )

This is the first time she gets an inkling of what Tsunayoshi Sawada truly desires. She lies awake at night and thinks, _he doesn’t want to change Vongola or even the mafia; he wants to change the world_.

Vongola comes out with just over half their original alliances still intact, a dozen more try to stab them in the back within the next three months and are summarily - if quietly - executed for it, and half the main branch along with the Varia are kept busy for a good three years cutting off the heads of anyone dumb enough to think Vongola weak and attempt to stage either a coup or an outright war against them.

(Another rumour says Vongola Nono works himself into cardiac arrest when he first hears. A third rumour says Gesso Decimo gives Vongola Decimo ownership of one of his finest Famiglia-created pâtisseries as congratulations.)

Despite all the fire and brimstone and horror and disgust at the new policies sweeping through the mafia world, Vongola still somehow comes out on top.

Giglio Nero does not break alliance, but they - along with quite a few other Famiglia - also hang back to watch what comes of Vongola’s tenuous position, not aiding for fear of these changes leading them to ruin, of being dragged down with the Vongola for supporting them.

The Giglio Nero do not hinder, but they do not help either.

(Yuni, at seven, eight, nine, watches her with eyes too old for her face, and Aria - looking back - sometimes wonders if that was the moment she lost all her daughter’s respect.)

Vongola doesn’t come out on top alone though. At the meeting that propelled most of their allies into a panic, Gesso is the first to declare its intentions to stand with Vongola. Dino Chiavarone - looking unsurprised in a way a man can only be when they already knew what was coming - is the second. Simon is the third. They are the only ones that day. But they are also the ones who take the first step with Vongola out into the open, shaking hands with politicians and playing nice with police despite all the mistrust and animosity on both sides. They are the ones most active in the initial drafts of the set of international laws that would one day govern Flame-enhanced humans, they are the ones who spearhead the change, and they are the ones who prompt others - not all, not even just Famiglia but freelancers as well, and more and more of both as time goes by - to recognize just how important it is to be part of the Integration. The longer they realize that it isn’t going away, the longer Vongola Decimo stays alive instead of ending up in a premature grave for his gall and daring, the more seriously they start researching the new legislation proposals and public sentiment regarding the Integration as they too begin stepping up with opinions and terms of their own.

Aria on the other hand waits for the longest time for the other shoe to drop. She isn’t the only one of course. What Vongola Decimo is proposing - and _has gone through with_ \- makes a lot of people anxious. It is not breaking Omerta exactly, but revealing so many secrets - not even just about  Flames but also the technological marvels that the mafia has invented and hoarded, the military power they’ve developed, even the medical miracles they’re capable of, all things that- that _normal people_ aren’t _supposed_ to have - is against so many unspoken rules that Aria wouldn’t be able to list them all if she tried.

Vindice will come calling, and that will be the end.

Except-

-that day never comes. Aria doesn’t even know why until she switches on the TV one day and chokes on her coffee when she sees the unmistakable form of Bermuda - top hat and all except in a new suit - sitting down on national television beside Tsunayoshi, in the process of stiffly explaining the function of the Vindice to the nervous-looking interviewer who looks slightly less nervous when Tsunayoshi smiles calmly at her.

(She realizes then, but the implications take days for her to understand and digest - _Tsunayoshi Sawada is a man with the Vindice’s backing_.

Perhaps it is only because of a debt owed, but the Vindice - however cruel they can be - is nothing if not _fair_ , and even just a debt would be enough to keep them at their word.)

The day after she realizes that Tsunayoshi is not going to stop, or rather, _nothing can stop him_ , nearly four years since the world discovered and accepted - with a complicated mix of excitement and wonder and fear and unrest - the concept of Flames, Aria contacts one of the names in the newly founded liaison department in Italy and begins hammering out a contract for her Famiglia.

She pretends she doesn’t notice the respectful way the officials she sits down with treats her ten-year-old daughter, just as she has pretended for the past four years that she doesn’t know of Yuni’s two visitors making regular trips into Giglio Nero territory to kidnap her for anywhere between a few hours to a few days, or the fact that she’s found copies of government documents in Yuni’s bedroom, corrections marked in red in the margins, scrawled out in three different people’s handwriting.

(“Did you teach him to do this?” She demands of Reborn once, earlier on, when he swings by for a visit.

Reborn looks faintly amused, absently swirling a glass of red wine in one hand. “I did not.” A rare look of pride flickers briefly across his face. “But he’s grown up magnificently, hasn’t he?”

“He’ll get us all killed,” Aria mutters, and even back then, a part of her wonders if she truly believes that.

Reborn shrugs elegantly. “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

“Don’t you care? This could destroy the world.”

Reborn only watches her, and Aria wonders if he still sees her mother in her - Luce, the only woman who ever successfully lured in the greatest hitman in the world, forged a Guardian bond with him, manipulated him, and then discarded him, all for the greater good. He’s never held it against Aria, and there’s a reason she made him godfather to Yuni, but sometimes, especially when she was younger, when _he_ was younger, Reborn used to watch her just like he is now - a potential target, an enemy that might need putting down.

“Tsuna does what Tsuna wants,” He eventually tells her. “I can fire bullets at him all damn day but I could no more stop him than I could stop the world from turning.” He pauses for a moment. “...I put my faith in him once. He didn’t let me down.”

He finishes off the last of the wine and uncrosses his legs, preparing to rise from the armchair. Aria watches him for a few seconds before venturing, “Are the recent rumours true? You’re joining the Vongola?”

Reborn flicks another glance at her. “I considered sticking it out on my own, but freelancer laws are still very much up in the air.” He smirks a bit. “We make the government uneasy, running around on our own. I could make it work, but it would be a pain in the ass and a political nightmare I have no interest in juggling. Those who can be couched under the umbrella of an actual organization are safer, especially when that organization is Vongola. It’s the face of the Integration after all. Lal and Colonello have already jumped onboard. Fon is wrapping up his last contract with the Triads before he takes the first flight back here. Even Skull and Verde have signed on.” He shrugs again before getting to his feet. “I was already thinking about it even before all this. If it’s Tsuna...”

He doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t have to.

_If it’s Tsuna, I can follow._

Maybe that should have been her biggest clue.)

The Giglio Nero comes through largely unscathed with concessions and allowances for its members and territory that even Aria didn’t expect going in. But then perhaps she should’ve, since it seems Yuni has been paving the way for her for years.

(Yuni and even Byakuran, both Skies, and the only ones who can really stand on even footing with Tsunayoshi Sawada, and yet following his lead anyway, a man who turns impossibilities into reality, who looked at what his blood demanded of him and refused to bow, who was told he had no choice in his place in the world and so he changed the world to make one.)

Another seven years later, Yuni steps up as Giglio Nero Decima in a world where seeing multi-coloured Flames amongst the general populace isn’t such a taboo anymore, and when she walks through the streets of Florence with Tsunayoshi on one side and Byakuran on the other, people smile and wave and stop to say hello.

Most look at them and no longer see mafiosi or scum of the earth or criminals. Their names are known worldwide.

They are unstoppable.

 

* * *

 

**10\. Sleepover**

The first time Byakuran steps foot in Tsuna’s childhood bedroom is three days after the Representative Battles ended. Half his Guardians are still healing ( _he’s_ still healing), his private jet needs refuelling, and Namimori is such a quaint little town that he can’t possibly leave without some sightseeing that doesn’t involve fighting for his life, or anybody else’s for that matter.

He’s still walking around with a bag of marshmallows in hand by the time the sun sets, and he doesn’t stop until his feet carry him to the Sawada household.

He’s not sure what he’s doing here, if he’s honest. He should be heading back to the hotel where his Guardians are staying. And yet, here he is, staring up at the window of the room where he can sense the shining heat of Tsunayoshi’s Flame core.

The Mare ring sits heavy on his finger, and the glint of it catches his eye when the streetlights flicker on as evening sets in.

(It is something of a cosmic joke, he thinks, that he can see into the future of every timeline he exists in, except his own.

He wonders if this timeline too will end in blood and body bags and his mind eaten away by madness.)

The curtain twitches. Byakuran’s gaze automatically lifts again to find a pair of guarded eyes peering back at him, the brown tinted with the faintest sheen of orange. They stare at each other for a long moment, and just when Byakuran thinks Tsuna will simply let the curtain fall back into place and possibly call for his hitman tutor, the other boy unlocks his window, slides it open, and calls down, “Come inside. I’ll open the door.”

He disappears, leaving Byakuran blinking after him, his bag of marshmallows still dangling from one hand as he wonders what just happened.

He should leave.

Instead, he opens the gate, shuts it behind him, and shuffles up to the door just as it swings open for him.

Tsuna stands halfway behind the door, biting his lip and looking nervous, but he also steps back and waves Byakuran inside.

(Byakuran is reminded, not for the first time, that not a single one of his alternate selves have ever really understood the kind of person Sawada Tsunayoshi is.)

“Um, so,” Tsuna locks the door before shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. He’s still very careful to leave at least a foot of space between himself and Byakuran. He also looks about as tired as Byakuran feels. It seems neither of them is entirely healed yet.

“Do you want to stay the night?” Tsuna blurts out, shoulders hunching a little, but he also meets Byakuran’s gaze and doesn’t look away.

Byakuran does what he does best - he nails a cheery smile on his face and digs into his bag of marshmallows again. “Well how can I refuse if you’re inviting me? I can’t wait to see where you sleep!”

Tsuna splutters, flushing a little and looking faintly horrified. Then he deflates and motions for Byakuran to follow him even as he mutters, “The kids are napping in the guestroom so you’ll have to bunk with me.”

...Byakuran doesn’t get this boy _at all_.

They pass by the kitchen where a woman is humming over the sound of something cooking.

“Kaa-san, this is Byakuran,” Tsuna introduces when Sawada Nana glances at them with guileless brown eyes. “Can he stay the night?”

“Of course!” She immediately chirps. “I’ve made extra food tonight anyway. I was hoping your father might make it home.”

She turns and begins humming to herself again. Byakuran stares at her for a moment longer and then glances at Tsuna in time to see the look of distaste on his face before it’s wiped away again.

“Come on,” He mutters, leading the way upstairs. “I’ll show you my room I guess.”

Byakuran ends up getting a futon, towel, a new toothbrush, a change of clothes, and a phone (“Call your friends, they might be worried.”) shoved at him. He gets fed some of the most delicious food he’s ever tasted, which is really saying something since the meal doesn’t even include marshmallows. He grabs a shower after dinner, and three hours after he first arrived, he somehow finds himself getting ready for bed on the floor of Tsunayoshi’s bedroom.

“Isn’t your pet hitman going to protest?” He finally says. It’s the first words he’s spoken since their brief exchange at the front door, and Tsuna jumps like a startled deer from where he’s also getting ready for bed.

“Uh, Reborn’s not in town anymore,” Tsuna mumbles, which isn’t exactly a _smart_ thing to tell Byakuran if he was actually here to harm the other Sky. “He left right after I- after the Battles.”

Byakuran slants a look at him, one that Tsuna avoids this time as he climbs into bed and fusses with his pillow. Byakuran says nothing, and his patience is rewarded when Tsuna eventually admits, “I told him I’m still not going to be a mafia boss. That’s when he left. He said his job was done.”

Ah, this old argument. Maybe Byakuran should-

“...In every world you were eligible for the position of Vongola Decimo,” Byakuran offers carefully. “You always became a mafia boss.”

_And I your enemy, and Yuni caught in the crossfire._

But abruptly, Tsunayoshi goes still. He stares for a moment at his hands. What Byakuran can see of his face is utterly expressionless.

And then he looks up, and his eyes are the colour of the purest Sky Flames, as fierce and unyielding and resolute as when he stood in front of them all and asked them to help him defeat the Vindice, and Byakuran’s breath catches at the sight.

“Then I’ll be the first who won’t,” Tsuna tells him, straight-backed and unblinking, his gaze sharp enough to cut.

Byakuran smiles just a touch sardonically. “The world won’t let you-”

“ _Then I will change the world,_ ” Tsunayoshi says, swears it like an Oath he would live and die by, and the voice of the universe echoes it with him.

The room flashes with Flame, and Byakuran’s eyes go wide. For a moment, the world whites out and three spinning pillars of white light take its place, spiralling forever onward as they keep the universe running.

And then they disappear. The bedroom slides back into focus, leaving both Byakuran and Tsuna gasping for breath and blinking spots out of their vision.

“Did you-” Tsuna starts, only to stop when Byakuran bursts into giggles, laughing long and hard until he’s doubled-over and wheezing.

When he finally manages to get himself under control, he realizes Tsuna is staring at him with more than a little alarm, all bambi-eyed and looking like he couldn’t hurt a fly.

“Are you… alright?” He ventures hesitantly, and Byakuran is tempted to start laughing all over again.

Instead, he waves a hand, “Fine, fine!” and the Mare Sky ring catches his eye.

Somehow, the weight of it doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

 _Alright_ , Byakuran muses, thinking of the broken Curse, of knowing Yuni would be born within the next few months, of a world already so wildly different from every other timeline Byakuran can see.

Of Tsunayoshi asking _Byakuran_ , _“Are you alright?”_

_Alright, Tsunayoshi. This time, let’s try it your way._

 


End file.
